Discussion about MODing MOULa (Split from GoW Bevin)

[kaelisebonrai]

In other words, you are being a "lore-abiding" (yes, the spelling there is correct) modder. You abide by the existing world's "lore", its background.

These kinds of mods are generally very good, and I tend to like lore-abiding mods, over random "very out there" mods. These are the kinds of mods I tend to do, myself. I fit my mods into the world of the game they are set in. Its only sensible.

However, if you're telling me it was ever Cyan's vision, or intent, to /ever/ have a bahro stone to "new k'veer", and have that stone in Kahlo Pub.. you've got to be kidding me. And, you're also claiming Yeesha wrote the book linking to KirelMOUL, which also breaks Cyan's rules. While I do not agree with said rules, you seem to support them. And Cyan would not've had a linking book to Releeshan, full stop.

Todelmer, was definitely done as to their intent, and it perfectly abides by your previous statement.

K'veer, Kirel, and Releeshan, I still don't understand how you can try to tell me they are at all like Cyan intended, or "Cyan's Vision" in any way shape or form. It follows the Lore of the world, but it is not at all how Cyan intended it.

[I.Brattin]

If Ubi hadn't canceled the first iteration of MOUL and Myst V had as a result never been made. I strongly believe that Releeshan would possibly eventually made its way into MOUL. Just as I believe that eventually Tomahna would have made it into MOUL. Cyan had always reserved the rights to Releeshan, no one else was able to do anything with it. Therefor it is a very strong possibility that Releeshan would have eventually been released as a MOUL age.

Those are of course my beliefs of what might have happened. Cyan may never have actually done that though, and we'll probably never truly know if they would have or not.

[kaelisebonrai]

Releeshan, was probably very much only ever intended for the cutscene in MystV in which it was seen, there's just.. too many issues for it to have ever have been intended to exist in Uru. There are so many flaws, and it seems entirely optimised for those few views we get in MystV. So, from the files we have, its fairly unlikely that it was ever intended to be more than that.

Whereas with K'veer in PotS there's all the evidence in the world that what we got in MOUL was always intended for Uru. The collision data for the hall is already included in the PotS files, even. The bits we see in MOUL, are also in the prologue trailer, in ABM, too.

[GPNMilano]

K'veer, Kirel, and Releeshan, I still don't understand how you can try to tell me they are at all like Cyan intended, or "Cyan's Vision" in any way shape or form. It follows the Lore of the world, but it is not at all how Cyan intended it.

I'm going to reiterate again emphasis on that last part:

Yes these books were additions to Cyan ages, but none of them broke any rule Cyan had set up regarding the art, and all of them were in keeping with what Cyan had done in the past, or were at one point planning to do. It was important to me, and still is, that whatever modifications I make to Cyan's stuff, it's always in keeping with Cyan's vision for Uru. I always fall back on the mindset "What would Cyan do in this particular case."

Parenthesis are my how i envisioned the Cyan thought process in action. Each of these are based on previous actions by Cyan to get to areas in MOUL.

Kveer: Can't use a portal. What did Cyan do the last time they couldn't use a portal. Hey...Bahro Stone!!! (POTS. Portal gets you to Descent. MOUL. No Portal. Bahro Stone gets you to Descent.)

Kirel: Don't want to use another Bahro Stone. Can't use a portal. Ah. Yeesha Linking Book. (MOUL, need to get to the Great Zero. Can't use a bahro stone. Don't want to use a portal. Let's put a Yeesha book in the bevin linking room)

Releeshan: New age to release (MOUL. Minkata. Jalak New non museum ages. Let's put it in the Library.)

Any other questions regarding why I did each of those and how they all match up to what Cyan would have done in those cases?

Again, Yes the Kirel book was in fact made by Cyan. It is a Cyan model, It exists in the Courtyard file. The difference being that the linking panel was changed, and the pythonfile mod were changed to point to Kirel. Other than that, that book has been there since POTS. That book has always been there.

[kaelisebonrai]

As I said. These are all "lore-abiding" changes, but no, they are not in line with Cyan's vision. They match the previous examples in this game-world, and are not a large leap in possibility... They do not, in /any/ way, line up with cyan's vision. Especially Releeshan. I do not believe Cyan would ever have included that age in the library, if they ever included it at /all/.

Yes, the teledahn book was there before, I am aware of that, and there was one outside of the library, too.

All these changes match the "lore" or the game. Matches it very well, in fact. This does NOT mean this is according to Cyan's vision.

These are all mods, and should be seen as such. They are not "canon" nor are they cyan's vision. But, the important thing is? This is perfectly fine. And I applaud it. The guiding rule all should abide by, if any is..

"If you don't like it? Don't install it."

I like it, so I install it. But, then I'm a horrible, horrible modder who doesn't respect anything. You get that.

[I.Brattin]

Releeshan, was probably very much only ever intended for the cutscene in MystV in which it was seen, there's just.. too many issues for it to have ever have been intended to exist in Uru. There are so many flaws, and it seems entirely optimised for those few views we get in MystV. So, from the files we have, its fairly unlikely that it was ever intended to be more than that.

That Releeshan was built for MystV, not for MOUL. Shoot its not even a converted MOUL age. It wasn't even in the list of planned ages. That said it is still possible if Myst V had never been made that we could have eventually seen somewhere down the road an expanded version of Releeshan.

Back on topic, I feel if Cyan has control of what is available instead of the community and my stuff is not added. Then what have I spent the last year (off and on) working on my stuff for? I will be real ticked to have spent time working on something and for it to all be for nothing. I feel I have a better chance at getting my stuff seen if its done like it is now where everything is available and people can choose themselves to view the new age or not.

[kaelisebonrai]

Well, regarding MystV and Uru, a lot of the MystV's content was originally intended to appear in Uru, in some form or another, which is why i referred to the fact it was pretty much entirely designed for just that one cutscene..

Tahgira, Noloben, Descent, Direbo, K'veer, Todelmer pretty much all of the above has at least uru-era concept art. Laki, not so much, but i think even that has some uru-era stuff, too. They aren't necessarily in the same form as originally intended, don't get me wrong... but they were pretty much all at one stage.. made for Uru. Some even have interesting remnants from that period, but, don't quote me on that one, I can't remember them off the top of my head, and may be misremembering... All of it... except for one thing, really.. Releeshan. Its highly unlikely that they would've ever have intended to put that age into Uru, as it is a canonical "inhabited" age. of which, there is pretty much only the single one in Uru... D'ni. and that's inhabited by *us*. =P

[GPNMilano]

As I said. These are all "lore-abiding" changes, but no, they are not in line with Cyan's vision. They match the previous examples in this game-world, and are not a large leap in possibility... They do not, in /any/ way, line up with cyan's vision. Especially Releeshan. I do not believe Cyan would ever have included that age in the library, if they ever included it at /all/.

And you and I disagree on if Cyan was going to ever release Releeshan. (Considering Watson mentioned it at least once. And a couple of other ages, were mentioned during MOUL. It stands to reason that they were at least looking into bringing this back at some point in the future. Legally they probably had to look into it since UbiSoft still owned the rights to Myst V) That's all well and good. My point is I was asked to find a place for Releeshan in POTS. I chose the library. I might add that the pedestal said book sits on does not exist in POTS. That pedestal was made for MOUL. So at some point something that Cyan had planned was going to go on that pedestal. So I chose to put Releeshan on there since it was the only thing in MOUL that was mentioned as an age we already could put there (With the exception of Noloben, which had already found it's way into POTS by this point)

Back on topic, I feel if Cyan has control of what is available instead of the community and my stuff is not added. Then what have I spent the last year (off and on) working on my stuff for? I will be real ticked to have spent time working on something and for it to all be for nothing. I feel I have a better chance at getting my stuff seen if its done like it is now where everything is available and people can choose themselves to view the new age or not.

Again, as long as your age doesn't violate one of the rules regarding fan created content, it shouldn't have a problem being put on the MOULAgain server. That's what people like Kaelis would rather not have. The rules regarding how the fan created content works. People who are used to doing whatever they want and saying "to hell with the original creator" usually will fight and kick when they have to conform to the rules the original creator sets up. But the important thing is Cyan doesn't mind us adding content to their game. They applaud it in fact. 1. It takes the problem of new monthly content off their shoulders. And 2. It generates buzz for Cyan and for Uru.

What bothers Kaelis i think, is that unlike what you have planned, or my neighborhood of Dorehn and the other stuff I've released and new stuff on the way, is that some of what he's done already will not be allowed on a MOULAgain server because it does violate Cyan's rule regarding fan created content. That sucks. But rather than fight those rules, Kaelis and others should think about altering their content so that it fits with acceptable fan created content that will be allowed on their server.

[kaelisebonrai]

Content I've already done does indeed abide by RAWA's rules, and you know it does. I went to great length to abide by those.

However, I do not believe that Cyan's "rules" are necessary, or even wise.

I don't have an FCAL, nor do I wish to obtain one. The FCAL process is insane, and utterly unnecessary. If you mean by modeling it again from scratch, not going to happen. And by that extension, some of your own content will need to be. As you mentioned to me in the Great Tree Pub in MOULagain, Dorehn uses the hood courtyard. I don't claim to know if you've gotten permission for that model, and if you said you had, I would likely believe you, while some.. others.. who shall remain unnamed, I wouldn't... While it does use other stuff... I just use *more* cyan content, rather than less. I abide by the lore, and realism in the setting. The only reason my content should be non-permissible, is the fact I haven't applied for an FCAL, and likely won't.

1) It is a self-contained area of D'ni.
2) There's absolutely no information about its location, or if there is any connection to any other location in D'ni...
3) No reference to Cyan owned locations, characters, etc..

EDIT: quick clarification.. the "while it does use other stuff" is a reference to yours, not mine. I almost exclusively use Cyan content.

[I.Brattin]

Chloe we don't know that for a fact. We hope it will be so, but we still don't know for a fact that is the case. It is highly possible Cyan will change the rules. Creating and actually having it available to explore are two different things. They have one set of rules that says you can and can't do this when creating an age. They may have an additional set of rules for inclusion in MOUL, we just don't know yet.

If they use the rules that we already have for Creation and use them for Inclusion in MOUL then your likely correct and everything will be released, likely with a timeline of sorts such as if they were doing it themselves. But only time will tell if that is true or not.

Edit: On the issues of FCAL's I think that needs to be revamped or just done away with. Especially since Cyan doesn't seem to be approving them anymore anyways. Now that said once the tools are released and fan ages are being included in MOUL then I personally will try again getting an FCAL, already tried once (going on almost a year since my request) and never received a response.